Now The Bad News: Headline Morality Is A Potent Weapon

March 12, 1989|By James M. Wall.

In May, 1979, Jerry Falwell decided it was time to inject some heavy morality into the public arena. The 1980 presidential campaign had begun, and a Democratic incumbent was under challenge from a California movie star turned politician. Falwell convened a meeting of religious and secular conservatives because, as he recalls in his autobiography ``Strength for the Journey,`` ``in spite of everything we were doing to turn the nation back to God, to morality and to constructive patriotism, the national crisis was growing quickly out of hand.``

Paul Weyrich was at the meeting, and during a luncheon break the political activist said to his host, ``Jerry, there is in America a moral majority that agrees about the basic issues. But they aren`t organized. They don`t have a platform. The media ignore them. Somebody`s got to get that moral majority together.`` One month later, Moral Majority Inc. was formed, bringing together Protestants, Jews and Catholics in an organization clearly dominated by Protestant fundamentalists.

This same Paul Weyrich appeared recently before the Senate Armed Services Committee when it was considering the nomination of former Sen. John Tower as secretary of defense. It is no small matter to be asked to respond to questions regarding the moral fitness of a presidential appointment. Committee staff members screen witnesses and determine if what they have to say is pertinent to the Senate`s decision. Witnesses are selected because they represent important groups or have vital information.

Under questioning from Chairman Sam Nunn (D., Ga.), Weyrich told the committee and the nation that Tower drank to excess and was a womanizer. Nunn cut off the questioning and took Weyrich into executive session. But the word was out. George Bush`s choice to run the Pentagon was about to be pilloried by the media as a man unqualified and unfit to serve in the nuclear chain of command.

FBI reports indicated that Tower was more vulnerable to this sort of criticism than Cabinet nominees usually are. A pattern of alcohol abuse raised serious doubts about Tower`s ability to handle a sensitive assignment. Bush`s decision to nominate him and then to defend the nomination for so long suggests that the President has put loyalty to a political ally above that of the nation`s best interest. The public outcry that followed Weyrich`s testimony was an important corrective to Bush`s misplaced loyalty.

The good news is that the character of a nominee has become an important actor in measuring fitness for public office. A person who should not have been given a sensitive post was shoved aside because the public disapproved of his reported lifestyle.

But there is some bad news. The particular shotgun that took aim at John Tower`s lifestyle is now loaded and ready to fire again. When the target is someone as vulnerable as Tower, the firing seems appropriate. But what about the weapon itself? Is it not likely to be used as a vindictive weapon against future candidates for public office?

Character is essential to making sound judgments. In assessing personal character, however, are we not in danger of veering off into a moralism that plays well in the media but has more to do with our desire to gossip than it does with a person`s job qualifications?

Gary Hart, an early victim of media morality, has complained that the rules have been changed, leaving public figures vulnerable to sensationalistic news coverage. Hart had few supporters ofter his fall because his actions were so obviously shortsighted. But in retrospect we have to acknowledge that he has a point. It became the conventional wisdom of the press that it was his

``bad judgment`` in continuing his womanizing that brought him down rather than the womanizing itself. But the sexual content of the bad judgment added to the story`s appeal in the media.

It is here that Weyrich`s role in Tower`s confirmation hearing is so significant. The ``moral majority`` now has the national voice that Weyrich once said it lacked. Ted Koppel`s ``Nightline`` program on ABC, for example, at times appears to serve as the conscience of the nation on the moral issues that have been called to the public`s attention by the Religious Right. Narrowly focused issues of personal morality dominate public attention because these are the ones the Religious Right sees as paramount. These are also the issues the media find commercially viable.